Walking into the theater while Nagato's last recorded lines played,
"... comrades to sail into battle with.
And as one ship girl to another, welcome back."
Hiei noted that Shigure was sitting to the left, with Nagato in the middle of the seated trio while Saratoga sat closest to the entrance, the Lexington-Class carrier waving them in as she invited.
"Welcome in. This is quite the documentary, a simple yet effective method of enlightening newcomers and bringing them up to speed on the situation. But, Nagato-san, if you please?"
Nagato nodded understandingly got up from her seat, motioning with her head for Hiei and Haruna to take her spot as she walked towards a black door with the sign,
"WARNING AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY"
Behind them, notifying the Kongou-Class battleships about what they were going to view next.
"Saratoga-san requested for this, so I'll be playing the disc with the prerecorded footage about technological developments, both in the United States and around the world. We should be in time for lunch after this, so don't worry."
Hiei and Haruna nodded, Hiei sitting beside Shigure while Haruna sat beside Saratoga, Hiei hearing her sister politely start a conversation with the Lexington-Class carrier about the documentary of the Abyssal War as Hiei looked down at Shigure and asked concernedly.
"Shigure. Does it hurt anywhere?"
Shigure shook her head truthfully, but Hiei was worried that the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer was trying to put up a brave front regarding the amount of fatigue she had sustained thus far, blinking constantly to keep herself awake and subtly clutching at her stomach as she hadn't eaten breakfast yet.
Hiei mentally grimaced as she put on a worried smile, gently clutching at Shigure hand to tell her in a serious voice, since this concerned her friend's well-being.
"Shigure, if you can't handle the hunger, I'm carrying you out of this theater and feeding you myself."
And Shigure responded weakly,
"Well, I'm actually a little more worried about dozing off after staying up all night to fight an Abyssal Princess. And if that happens, I'd prefer to get some sleep rather than eat a meal, since as ship girls, we can go for quite a long period of time without food. But the lack of sleep will slowly induce fatigue, which is harder to recover from."
Hiei nodded as the theater went dark again, halting all conversations as the screen displayed the ship girl symbol with the Japanese characters "艦これ" in large golden fonts with a laurel wreath and a gold anchor beneath the wreath where the two branches met.
And finally, the screen changed to show a small auditorium and a ship girl taking the stage, Hiei recognizing USS Maryland on the screen as she bowed, her dark hair shifting gracefully as she introduced herself.
"Greetings. I am USS Maryland, and we are gathered here today to learn about technological advancements made after the war in order to understand how we reached from simple rotary phones to hand-phones with various miscellaneous features. Please note that what we are going over are extremely simplified summaries in the interest of time, so if you are still confused and are suffering from what we term 'future shock' and feel as if you are unable to adapt to the modern age by yourself, feel free to ask your Admiral or senior ship girls for help."
The screen behind her shifted to a picture of the Able and Baker Tests at Bikini Atoll, both Nagato and Saratoga freezing up upon witnessing the two mushroom clouds of doom, although Hiei could tell through her hearing that Nagato handled it better than Saratoga did, since living for so long gave her more time to come to terms with her past trauma.
Saratoga was a little worse off in that regard as her hand was shaking a little, but Haruna and Nagato were there for her as both of them held each hand in order to comfort her as Maryland began the lesson.
"We, the Americans, conducted Operation Crossroads at the island of Bikini Atoll in order to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. And during the Cold War, we pushed our technological prowess to the limit, to the point where we developed nuclear weapons that functioned primarily on nuclear fusion, the reaction which powers the sun."
The next picture was of a plane flying above the clouds, likely in the stratosphere as the mother of all mushroom clouds drew everyone's attention, the lens flare which was the sun slightly irradiating the picture but was still overshadowed by the gigantic mushroom cloud, easily punching through the layer of clouds and reaching for the heavens.
"This picture was taken 161 kilometers from the detonation of the Tsar Bomba, and this mushroom cloud was 56 kilometers tall when this picture was taken.
It was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, and all buildings within 55 kilometers were annihilated, shattering windowpanes as far away as 900 kilometers from the point of detonation. Fortunately, despite the Cold War culminating in the climax that was the Cuban Missile Crisis, saner minds prevailed and we were fortunate enough not to have started another world war, which would no doubt have ended everything within a matter of minutes, if not hours. Onto lighter matters."
The screen was now replaced with a black-and-white picture of a plane with a sharp, domed nose, a sleek fuselage and swept-back wings with two mean-looking engines to provide the thrust needed to fly the plane, with one engine beneath each wing.
The fact that the Nazi swastika symbol was imprinted on the rudder of the plane and on the rear fuselage didn't escape anyone's notice, but everyone in the theater knew to leave the topic alone as this was obviously a Luftwaffe plane.
"We developed several new airplanes in order to fly at faster speeds after studying the swept-back wing designs and turbojet engines of the Messerschmitt Me 262, eventually developing fighter planes which could break the sound barrier. Weapons guidance technology has also come a long way, and these planes possess the capability of locking onto enemy signatures and firing homing missiles. As part of the human effort to help us fight the Abyssal War, these fast-response fighter jets have played an integral role in providing us backup with their improved performance and payloads over the two decades."
The next video was of a fighter jet, the video being too grainy to make out the specific model despite being in color, but the fighter jet was sleek and had swept-back wings not unlike the Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 262, and as it flew across the bright blue air with a few wisps of clouds in the background, it was clear from the speed of the plane that it was far faster than any World War 2 combat plane ever created.
And when it approached the speed of sound, the fighter plane had some sort of foggy cone being blasted backwards as the fighter jet flew past the cameraman, the crack of the sonic boom occurring shortly afterwards before the plane disappeared into the blue sky.
The next two pictures were of the Apollo 13 Space Shuttle, a strangely-styled black-and-white plane with symbol of the American flag and "USA" emblazoned on its left wing, its fuselage coupled to the conspicuously-colored orange external tank with two ICBM-looking solid rocket boosters in action, leaving a pillar of incandescent flames behind as they provided the thrust needed to fly the spaceship, Hiei hearing Saratoga gasp in surprise at the size of the spaceship as it left thick, puffy clouds in its wake.
The other picture was of a human in a white spacesuit with a golden visor, and he was standing on a barren land with the pitch-black darkness of space in the background, with the Apollo 11 Lunar Module behind him and the erected American flag beside the astronaut, commenting on the Moon landing.
"In 1969, as part of the Cold War between the Soviets and Americans, the two countries participated in the Space Race, whose ultimate aim was to send humans into space instead of satellites, and ultimately to the moon. And in response to the Soviets first sending Laika, a Russian dog, and then Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, into space, we sent two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon and back, as you can see in the following video."
The screen behind Maryland cut to a grainy black and white video of said astronaut descending a ladder belonging to the Lunar Module as Hiei gave the American an aside glance, watching Saratoga now become entranced by her country's accomplishment which would be forever remembered as Neil Armstrong said his famous quote.
"That's one small step for a man… one… giant leap for mankind."
Shigure leaned in to quietly ask,
"Did he say, 'one small step for man ' or 'for a man'? If it's the former, then that quote doesn't make much sense."
Hiei leaned in while keeping her eyes on the screen as she explained.
"Neil Armstrong was from Central Ohio.
His thick accent blanketed the 'a', but it's there."
Now shifting to another two pictures, Maryland gestured to a smaller missile, a white tubular fuselage with a rounded tip and orange wings as it blasted across the screen, the other being a gigantic white rocket placed horizontally on a movable platform with "US AIR FORCE" etched on its side vertically down its fuselage, the battleship explaining the sight behind her.
"Moving on, what we once knew as the V-1 Flying Bomb developed by the Nazis has been improved into this, the American Tomahawk missile and the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM for short. The smaller Tomahawk is a subsonic cruise missile which has a maximum range of 2500 kilometers while the larger Minuteman missile has a range of 13000 kilometers."
Hiei nodded mutely, now also interested in the history lesson as the screen shifted to a picture of an IBM 5051 with an arrow leading from it to point at an IBM Thinkpad 850, an early laptop model, and another arrow pointing to the chess-playing computer known as Deep Blue.
"Our technology has also improved in order to perform tasks faster, so that computers drastically shrink in size but possess greater performance specs, and it improved to the point where a computer beat a human chess-master, Garry Kasparov, in a chess match. The development of the computer also brought about the advent of the internet, which allowed much of the world to connect with each other and share information quickly, making current events much easier to follow since a lot of people around the world possess laptops and hand-phones. So if you're thinking of communicating with a fellow ship girl across the globe, worry not."
The screen changed yet again to show helicopters and submarines, two war vehicles which received a lot of attention in the post-World-War-2-era, Maryland patiently explaining.
"Compared to the technology of our day, which only allowed for the creation of auto-gyros and smaller submarines, they exist today mostly as helicopters and nuclear submarines. What you see here is a Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter with its missiles and machine gun armaments on display, and the Ohio-Class submarine with its missile silos open in order to launch its Trident missiles."
Looking back at the audience, Maryland, being a battleship whom Hiei knew was a hardworking ship girl and was a front-line combatant no matter which base she hailed from, was likely speaking from personal experience.
"These submarines and helicopters, despite being a bit more limited than fighter jets mainly in terms of speed, have also been extremely helpful in other ways by helping us detect and track underwater Abyssal activity with their sonar, and providing extra firepower after taking off from modern helicopter destroyers respectively."
Hiei suddenly felt a small arm curl around her elbow, and she looked down to find Shigure's downcast expression betraying her fear of submarines after she was sunk by USS Blackfin in the war.
The Kongou-Class battleship used her right hand to gently pry her hand off of her elbow, although she still tenderly held it as she used her relatively long left arm to reach across in order to clutch Shigure's left shoulder, bringing her in to embrace her.
Shigure briefly looked up in surprise to find a confident Hiei smiling down at her, and she finally saw the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer believe in her strength and her smile as she leaned on her for support.
Making sure that her little friend felt safe in her embrace before turning back to the screen, Hiei could see the Colorado-Class continuing on like a training cruiser who was tasked with training and enlightening ship girls under her tutelage, smiling warmly as she described the next piece of technology.
"... And thus, with the help of 24 satellites in space, we can help pinpoint your location via the Global-Positioning System almost anywhere on Earth. And this…"
A laser-guidance system was shown on screen as it explained how it worked, Maryland adding her commentary.
"Is a laser guidance system. The laser reflects off of the enemy which we point the laser at and is scattered everywhere, and as a weapon, be it a missile, bomb or some other projectile, flies towards the general direction of the target, a laser seeker detects where the laser is reflected from. It then adjusts its trajectory to hit the target accurately should we keep the laser trained on the enemy, and like what I said about fighter jets and helicopters helping us out by firing their missiles, we occasionally utilize these laser pointers in major battles to direct their payloads towards the Abyssals while danger close."
The video was nearing its end as Maryland was now discussing about tanks, a picture of a M1A1 Abrams tank and a T90 tank, explaining the sight before the audience.
"Nowadays, tanks are also a lot more advanced where they have monitors inside them to display the environment, allied and enemy units, the distance to target and the tank's position on the map via GPS. This is integral in helping the tank commander improve his or her situational awareness, as well as improving the coordination between units as radio communications have also come a long way since then.
What is also made possible nowadays is the tank's Anti-Missile weapon attachments which help to destroy inbound Anti-Tank missiles that the tank sensors are capable of detecting, and their specially-created composite armor is capable of doing its job by protecting the tank and keeping its occupants alive."
Maryland was now entering the theoretical stage of her lecture, as humans now had the Fairies on their side, who were extremely knowledgeable engineers who could help them speed up their development of futuristic weapons and green vehicles to help improve the energy crisis.
"And with the Fairies helping us with their advanced knowledge of weapons, physics, engineering and various other related fields of science, we are experiencing another burst of technological advancement, and are planning to develop several weapons that are beyond our time.
Amongst them is the railgun."
Now displaying an extremely long, reinforced barrel with the logo,
"GENERAL ATOMICS"
In a white font on the dark railgun barrel that had to be supported at several intervals to prevent it from hitting the floor, with advanced machinery forming a ring at its end as it fed energy into the barrel, its large muzzle covered up for obvious safety reasons.
"This weapon utilizes the Lorentz Force to propel a projectile at supersonic speeds, the projectile theoretically capable of reaching a speed of Mach 7 and annihilating anything on the receiving end with pure kinetic energy. Efforts are being made to improve both the railgun's accuracy and durability, and results are looking promising."
Now moving on to a lighter topic, the next three pictures were of a Nissan Leaf, a Tesla Roadster and a Toyota Mirai, three Eco-friendly cars that were introduced ahead of their planned schedules due to the little engineers.
Hiei knew that because the Japanese government, in trying to keep the war going while sustaining the livelihood of the Japanese people, publicly cut a deal with the Fairies early on in the war in order to help advance their Eco-friendly technology, making sure that if they were going to win this war and save the world, what was left wouldn't be a smoggy, pollution-filled planet.
The Fairies accepted, not that they needed much of an incentive to do so as they wanted the humans to win as much as the humans themselves did, and these three car models were amongst the now-common Eco-friendly cars that were available on the market, massively cutting down on the amount of fuel used, which was then used to power the Japanese war machine.
"The Fairies have also helped us spearhead the Eco-friendly technology initiative, helping us design and mass-produce vehicles and optimizing existing technology and systems to ensure that carbon emissions are cut down by an estimated 27% every year, and that percentage is increasing annually. Advances in weather prediction technology helped America mitigate the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and Sandy in 2005 and 2012 respectively, and helped Japan quickly recover from the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incident with minimal damage. These little engineers are truly a godsend to both mankind and ship-girl-kind in more ways than one."
Hiei exhaled as she felt a shiver run down her spine, the air-conditioned cold air getting to her as she realized that in some sense, the Fairies were indeed a godsend, not only to the ship girls who were created by them, but also to humanity, who would've been devastated should they not exist in the first place and these these natural disasters be allowed to run their course.
And the video was about to end, the screen behind Maryland displaying the credits as the Colorado-Class battleship summed up her lecture.
"Since World War 2, technology has come a long way since then, both to improve the human quality of life and to improve the effectiveness of weapons on the battlefield, and eventually also helping to protect the environment in the process. To learn about our technological advances is to be able to understand how it influences our human lives, our society as a whole and even our battles, as humans try to use their weapons to help back us up on the oceans. Technology is only going to become even more advanced in the future, and we'd best start getting used to the leaps and bounds in technology that we've made thus far, and will make from here on out."
Before the screen faded to white with the international, golden ship girl symbol "艦これ" appearing again on a white screen before fading to black.
Hiei looked beside her to see a silent Saratoga looking downwards, overwhelmed by the history lesson she just sat through and was trying to comprehend just how far mankind had come even without the Fairies and ship girls.
And looking back to her left after noting that Shigure hadn't asked anything in awhile, found that the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer was fast asleep while leaning on her, lightly snoring as she seemed to be at peace after fighting so many tough battles within the span of a week.
Looking at the vulnerable form of the sleeping destroyer, Hiei swore that she'd step up her game and strove to do better after she was discharged, since she couldn't let Shigure feel as if she had to carry the team on her own, and made her feel like a burden to the little destroyer.
She was a proud Kongou-Class battleship, and she had to live up to her potential as a battleship for the sake of her teammates.
And strangely enough, the goal of impressing her Onee-sama wasn't on her mind, now also feeling a little tired since she was still supposed to be resting in the docks, the lights slowly coming on as Nagato stood up to start ushering them out of the theater.
Hiei gently turned and got up from her seat in order to lift Shigure up in a bridal carry, Haruna helping Saratoga up as the American battleship meekly asked.
"We've come a long way, haven't we?"
Haruna nodded as they got up, heading for the exit as Saratoga asked the three of them (since Shigure was fast asleep) about the worst-case scenario where other ship girls would ostracize her simply for being an American.
"But… Even though I'm glad to be brought back into this world, I'm not sure if the ship girls of this base will accept me because of our past and my nationality..."
But Hiei was the one to speak up about how she believed that the ship girls of Yokosuka was going to accept her as a comrade-in-arms, despite needing some time to get used to the idea of an American carrier as a member of their base.
"No. I think everyone here would need some time to get used to an American newcomer, but they'll accept you soon enough. I won't say that there won't be some tension between you and several ship girls, namely Ryuujou whom you sank and Takao and Atago whom you bombed at Rabaul, all three of them present in this base."
Saratoga inhaled sharply as the four of them saw the light of day, but Hiei was quick to add as she knew the three ship girls in question quite well.
"Look, they aren't bad girls. I believe that they'll probably be a little skittish around you for a while, but they'll forgive you soon enough and will revert to being their usual selves around you. We know that you Americans genuinely want to help, and I trust our ship girls well enough to put aside our differences and past to work together."
Nodding downwards towards a sleeping Shigure in her arms, who looked like a innocent sleeping child as she took a well-deserved break after participating in two major naval battles and no longer had the look of maturity on her face, the look which a few high-performing destroyers often possessed after being forced to grow up too quickly and were thus wise beyond their years.
"If a destroyer can learn to overcome both nationality and history to be one of your first few friends in this life, everyone should be able to do so. To fail to do so is to disappoint our Admiral, who preaches understanding and acceptance, and would only serve to alienate a powerful teammate. You're a great comrade and friend to have, and I'll be looking forward to working with you."
Saratoga's cheeks colored a little as she nodded, turning to tell Nagato about what she wanted to do right now after being spawned in the dead of night and having her world rocked by so many changes in such a short span of time.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I need some time to accept all of this, do you think we can go someplace quiet to eat lunch and dinner together? And I'd like some time alone to think about and accept all these advancements. I apologize, but I'm no longer in the mood to meet any more ship girls for the rest of today."
Everyone noted the mental and emotional fatigue in the carrier's expression and demeanor, and Haruna was extremely understanding as she consoled.
"Of course. We can go to Houshou's establishment to get some food and rest up for the rest of today. She's a motherly, retired light carrier who runs a bar in lieu of sortieing to fight in battles. She will understand your plight and allow you to stay there temporarily until you've sorted your thoughts out."
Saratoga nodded as Nagato, ever the silent guardian with her commanding and reassuring presence, led the way as she gave Hiei a quiet nod, an action which Hiei reciprocated as Haruna, Saratoga and Nagato headed towards the Shinsengumi , and Hiei, still carrying Shigure, headed towards the Shiratsuyu-Class bedroom to place Shigure in bed.
She still needed to return to the hospital in order to complete her recovery before continuing her training and sorties, but she was already raring to go all-out.